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Comment by gregshap | Hacker News Reader

It's nice when company owners support labor solidarity, but I think it's silly to say that uber scabbed or broke the strike. Uber is a multi hundred billion dollar capitalist entity, with a stated goal of automating away all of the drivers. Uber drivers broke the strike. Lyft drivers also broke the strike.

It's one thing to expect labor solidarity from workers, but I don't see how it's rational to expect labor solidarity from a massive store of private wealth.

What uber did was make it less profitable for uber drivers to scab, which is moderately pro strike if anything. Lyft fares undoubtedly went up in that time, but Lyft doesn't profit as much from surge pricing, rather their model allowed scabbing drivers to keep those extra wages.

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Scabbing is breaking the strike. Uber dispatched drivers to break the strike. I'll say it again, it's not complicated.

Scabs have historically operated under the cover of a private entity. This was the express function of the Pinkertons, for example. You can't rewrite the history of American labor and what its accomplished with neoliberal circumlocutions. Just because corporations became clever enough to describe scabs as "independent contractors" operating under "complex algorithms" and "surge pricing," doesn't mean we have to believe them.

Uber dispatched nobody. The drivers dispatched themselves. You're saying it was Uber's responsibility to side with the strikers (who are their competition) against the wishes of their own drivers? Seriously?

If Uber had forced a strike on its drivers (without a vote no less) people would have been pissed that they were left stranded.

If enough Uber drivers wanted to strike, they would have. They didn't. Maybe they are a different demograph with different concerns. Who knows.

You know the last time Uber had surge pricing during a huge surge in demand in Australia they got a lot of shit. They said they wouldn't do it again. They kept their word.

And why must Uber be on the side of the strikers or face punishment? What about all the people hailing cabs, Ubers, or Lyfts? They are exempt from morality? Lyft picked up people too. The fact that Uber chose not to price gouge is not a support of the ban.

No, they're not exempt, and I already said as much before in other comments on this post.

Saying the didn't dispatch drivers is just another cavillous circumlocution. They created, maintain, and profit from the platform through which the scabs were sent to break a strike. People see through these kind of dodges, although they could do a better job of seeing through Lyft's PR.

Let's compare two quotes from you:

"They dispatched drivers to break the strike."

"They created, maintain, and profit from the platform through which the scabs were sent to break a strike."

These are two very different shades of meaning. The first is active, the second is passive. So Uber passively broke the strike, but not actively. I think the difference is appreciable.

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